


where the rain gets in

by impossibletruths



Series: until the dawn [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Prompt Fill, Sharing a Bed, Snow, The Hole In Cullen's Ceiling Is An Important Plot Point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 01:47:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17013231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: Her space has always been her own, a precious commodity after so many years desperate for the frailest sliver of privacy. Funny, then, how easily he steps into it, how little she minds, how effortlessly she opens it up to him. And, besides––he has to sleepsomewhere. It may as well be her own (spacious) (empty) quarters.





	where the rain gets in

**Author's Note:**

> day five of the [30 days of domestic fluff challenge](https://cityandking.tumblr.com/post/180245590817): evening routine. set mid-to-late game. title from "fixing a hole" by paul mccartney

It happens because it’s snowing. It happens for other reasons too, like because they have been dancing this slow dance for months now, and because at some point the hope outweighs the fear, and because she asks.

Mostly, though, it happens because it is snowing.

It doesn’t snow in Skyhold, not like it did in Haven. That is strange; they are higher in the mountains here, and yet the weather is better, kinder. Vesper has her theories about that, theories involving the near-constant hum of magic somewhere deep in the bones of the earth and the jagged teeth of the surrounding mountains like a bulwark and the near-constant greenery. But those are thoughts for another  time, not tonight.

Tonight, it is snowing.

A light blanket of thick-damp flakes falls across the old castle, pretty and soft and almost alien, like static across the world, blotting out the sky and the scar of the Breach and the conflict brought with it, the splintering war that twists outwards like threads of a web, like the shatter lines of a mirror, to connect the whole of the south. The snow blots out closer things too, realer things, like the broad bulk of the main hall across the courtyard, and an untouched sheet of white obscures the battlements as it drifts down across the stone and yard and roofs.

Which means, of course, that is must also be drifting down through the hole in Cullens.

“Oh, Maker,” he says heavily when they finally take a pause from their discussion of troop movements and provisions and which keep is most in need of relief and catch sight of the flakes through his narrow windows. He blanches and looks to her, and as one they look to the ladder, and up where it leads to his sleeping quarters.

“Oh,” he adds with a bitter, almost irritated resignation, “fuck.”

It is, for a moment, very difficult not to laugh at him, the slump of his shoulders and the pinch of his brows and the utter foolishness of having a hole in his roof even though they have been settled into this mountain bastion for nearly a year.

He abruptly drops the stack reports he has been shuffling through and, eyes not leaving the square-cut entrance to his meagre quarters above them, strides over to the ladder. Vesper watches him clamber up, and then pause with his head just vanishing beyond the ceiling.

He says something very colorful then, half muffled by the ceiling between them, and Vesper swallows down a laugh, her own paperwork forgotten in her hand.

When he comes down again there is snow in his hair. Vesper presses her lips into a careful, flat line so he will not catch her smiling at his misfortune. She cannot quite manage to hide the crinkle of her eyes.

“You have something,” she tells him. “Just there.”

“Funny,” he says sullenly, brushing the flakes from his hair before they melt. Vesper’s expression softens.

“How bad is it?”

“It’s the floor, mostly.” He sighs and returns to his desk, hovering over it a minute, thoughts clearly occupied with the state of his personal affairs. His mouth twists. “And a–– a bit of the bed. It’s fine. Nothing some fresh sheets will not fix, but–– Maker. I didn’t expect it to snow up here, not when––”

Not when they have had nothing to complain about these past months but the summer heat. Even the crispest winter days have been remarkably gentle, offering little more than short-lived frost.

Though, it has rained. Vesper’s mouth twists as she wonders about that, and then thinks better of asking.

“I can set a ward, if you would like,” she offers instead. “It will not help what is already come down, but–– It should keep through the night.”

“No, it’s fine,” he says, waving her away, already returning to his desk. “I can sleep down here, or in the barracks. There’s always extra space.” He looks up to her with a crooked, embarrassed slip of a grimace. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Ah. So that has been his solution. Her brow pulls into a narrow frown of its own volition, and she fixes him with a look.

“Cullen. Let me help.”

He will not meet her eyes. “Truly, it is not necessary, it––”

“Will only take a moment,” she cuts in. She sets her reports down on the desk and taps them twice to bring his attention back to the matter at hand. “And then we can figure out what in the name of Andraste to do about Griffon Wing’s relief.”

“I–– Alright, yes,” he agrees with a sigh, hand already coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose. He waves in her direction with the other hand, and she spares him a glance he is not looking at her to catch, and hoists herself up the ladder.

She has only seen his quarters once before, when he had been bedridden from withdrawal and Cassandra unable to check in on him. It had been high summer then, and hot as anything, and he had been so–– so––

The room is cool now, cold even. Chill. A drift of slowly melting slow has begun to collect just next to the ladder, and the wind blows some of it toward the bed. Cullen is right; he will have damp sheets in the morning, but nothing that cannot be easily rectified.

So long as it does not continue to snow in here.

Vesper places herself beneath the open hole of the sky and resigns herself to the flurries coming down as she sketches out the familiar glyphs for warding. They had been pure theory when she first learned them, and then a subtle way to garner a little privacy when sharing a room with other apprentices, and then––

Funny how the little things she learned for curiosity have come back to haunt and help her by turns since the Circles crumbled.

Someone has done this before; the glyphs have been drawn in faded charcoal around the gaping hole in the roof. Were she a betting woman she would call it Solas’ handiwork. But she is not, so she makes a mental note to come back and refresh them properly when she has the coal for it and is not standing in the snow, and finishes the ward. When it is finished the snow finally stops falling inside the room, caught by an unseen, gently sloping dome and coaxed to either side of the roof. She has done a particularly good job with this one; it will keep for the night easily, and most likely the week. It will buy him enough time for her to come back and do it properly, in any case.

When she slides back down the ladder, Cullen is bent over the desk scratching something on a scrap of parchment. He glances up when she lands.

“You have something,” he says, face blank. “Just there.”

She laughs and brushes the snow from her shoulders. “It should keep for a while,” she tells him.

“Thank you.” He only sounds a little sheepish. And then, switching gears, he adds far more firmly, “I think I’ve found a solution to Rylen’s troop problem.”

“Really?” She leans over the desk, reading his scrawled notes upside down. “Oh, yes. I see.”

“It wouldn’t be long-term solution,” he cautions, and she starts shaking her head before he’s finished speaking.

“If it buys us time, I am happy for the half measure. It will make Leliana happy, in any case.”

“I thought the same, yes.” He frowns, brow furrowing. “There is still the question of the eastern trade route.”

“Josephine mentioned speaking with the local Banns.”

Cullen is quiet for a moment to long. She looks up to find him hesitating with his hand on the back of his neck, and then he straightens with a frown. His other hand reaches for a sword he is not wearing so late at night; it settles awkwardly on the desk instead. “I would… feel better if we could send men with her envoy.”

Vesper bites down on a sigh. Cullen and Josephine have been prickly about this particular problem since it first cropped up. Cullen wants to clear out the bandits; Josephine wants to keep from treading on any does in the Bannorn. Vesper would like it to be dealt with, so that they can get supplies moving through Ferelden again. She does not particularly care how that comes to pass.

“I will discuss it with her in the morning,” Vesper replies, diplomatic as she can manage. It would fool a stranger; Cullen looks up at her and softens, apology writ large across his face. He’s as exhausted as she is; neither of them want to revisit this argument right now.

“Alright.” He rolls out his neck. “If there is nothing left…”

He trails off. There is plenty left, of course. There is always plenty left.

But it will keep until the morning.

“I think that’s it.” Vesper rubs idly at her left hand. The anchor throbs in time with her heartbeat, and her growing headache. It gets worse late at night, when the full weight of the day lies heavy on her shoulders. “I’m sorry to keep you so late.”

Cullen only shakes his head. They both know he would have been up this late regardless of her presence. “I’ll send the orders out in the morning.”

“And in the meantime?”

“What?”

“Where will you sleep?”

His eyes shift up to his quarters and his mouth twists. “I can stay––”

“Stay with me.”

She speaks over him, words spilling out before she can overthink them, and for a moment they stare at each other over the bulk of his desk. The snow swallows the sound around them, swallows the whole of the keep; they might well be the only people here.

Cullen wets his lips. “Are you sure?” His voice is shockingly steady.

“Yes. We don’t have to––” _to do anything_ , she cannot quite manage to say, but the delicate pink at the tips of his ears would suggest he understands. She takes a breath and starts again, tries not to feel as though she is delicately pulling open her ribcage so he can see the messy red inside of her. “I would like it if you stayed.”

He only hesitates a moment. “Alright. Let me gather a few things.”

Her mouth is dry, suddenly, and there is something uncertain in her chest, wobbly but bright too. “Of course.”

While he disappears back up the ladder, she shrugs on her coat and scarf, and is grateful to have brought them. Through the window the snow falls more heavily; Skyhold will be fresh white in the morning.

She is midway through gathering the reports she will need tomorrow and tucking them into her coat when he returns with a small satchel in one hand.

“I’m ready,” he says, needlessly, and the wobbly-bright thing in her ribcage thrums a moment before settling again.

She lingers him a moment in the lee of the tower as he locks the door behind him, and then they both duck their heads to the wind and press their way along the battlements. Vesper pauses only once, halfway across, scarf pulled high over her nose, and stares out at the still and silent keep. Even the watchfires are dimmed by the snow; the entire mountain seems to sleep around them, muffled. The darkness shines with it.

Cullen pauses next to her, snow gathering in the thick fur of his collar. She looks to him, all haloed in white and pink cheeked, and her stomach turns in a way that is not entirely unpleasant.

“Andraste’s tits, it’s cold,” he mutters, ruining the moment, except is isn’t really ruined because the twisting thing in her stomach climbs up her throat and transforms itself into a laugh. She grabs his hand.

“Come on,” she says, tugging him across, and they break into a walk, and then a run, skidding and sliding through the snow until they reach the door of the narrow library tower and find respite from the wind and the chill in one of the entry alcoves. Vesper brushes the snow from his hair, already curling horribly from the damp, and he dusts down her shoulders and coat. Only a few candles flicker in the rotunda beyond, just enough to limn him in faint firelight. They’re both breathing heavily, from the cold more than the run. She rises up on her toes briefly to kiss him, very soft.

Then she takes him by the hand and they wind their way through the quiet tower and the empty hall up to her chambers.

She sets her paperwork on the desk and busies herself with the fire once they arrive, laying out logs and kindling with an anxious precision. It is not that she is uncomfortable with him here––she never would have asked, not if she did not want him here in her space, in her privacy––but it is still a little awkward, the extra set of eyes, the extra body, the extra steps. So she takes her time with the building the fire, and then set it alight with a snap of her fingers. She tends it a moment, coaxes it to a low, merry glow in the hearth, and only then does she turn around.

Cullen stands at the couch, his satchel set upon one cushion, and eyes taking in the room: the thick carpets and the desk in the corner with its overflowing bookcases and her slightly messy dresser against the far wall and the bed, all red and gold and resplendent, a monstrous Orlesian thing that is perhaps her one indulgence. He looks it all over, and then his attention turns to her.

“It is nicer than beneath my desk,” he admits. She laughs.

“Then you’ll stay?”

His expression softens around the edges, tugs at something delicate beneath her sternum. “As long as you would have me.”

She does not know what to say; the thing in her chest is too big for words. She settles for the concrete. That at least is easy to express.

“The washroom is through there,” she says, pointing to the door behind him. “If–– if you need anything––”

“I will be alright.”

He vanishes into the washroom and she paces the floor a moment before hurriedly shucking her outer layers, vest and gloves and boots all going in their proper place at the dresser. She tidies up there while she’s at it, shivering only a little as the fire begins to warm up the room. By the time Cullen emerges from the washroom with his mantle over one arm and his hair a wild tangle of damp curls warmth has finally begun to seep into the stone around them.

“Ah,” he says, shaking out his hair hair and carefully laying the mantle over one arm of the couch. “Would you mind helping me with this?” He tugs slightly at the breastplate he wears.

“Of course,” she says, and between the two of them they rid him of plate and pauldrons and vambraces, and he settles to unlace his boots while Vesper ducks into the washroom herself. When she emerges he’s shucked down to his shirt and a soft pair of sleep pants. She’s seen him in so little before––seen him in less, even––but never often.

It is strange to see him without his armor. It is heady to be allowed to.

“Well,” he says, staring at her.

“Well,” she returns, and then laughs because she has seen him naked, for the Maker’s sake. Granted there had been more alcohol involved, and one very smug ambassador, but––

“I still need to fix my hair,” she says. It is loose now, and a little long; she will need a trim soon. She perches on the edge of the bed to braid it, one knee drawn up for balance. Cullen hesitates a moment, then sits on the other side. The bed is so broad she barely feels it dip under his weight.

“Are you sure this is alright?” he asks, and she twists around with her fingers still caught halfway through, tie laid across her thigh, to find him staring at her.

“Yes,” she tells him. Funny how still she feels now, how steady. “I wouldn’t have offered, otherwise.”

“Alright,” he says. And then, more to himself, “Alright.”

She finishes the braid and ties it off with a length of linen, and then pushes herself up to check the fire one last time––it is a little bright; she coaxes it lower with a hum of magic and a poker––and then returns to the far side of the bed. Cullen still sits there, watching her move through her evening routine with a banked awe, as though these little things are a marvel. She catches him staring, and he does not look away.

“Is there anything you need?” she asks, because she feels she should, and he shakes his head.

She unlaces her pants, and then hesitates a moment, as–– But no, she has invited him here, invited him in; she does not mind his eyes or his steadiness or his quiet. She wriggles out of them and, clad only in her undershirt, leaves them in a heap on the chair in front of her vanity. Then she slides into bed, burrowing beneath the cool blankets. A moment later Cullen sighs, and tugs his shirt off in one smooth motion and lobs it towards the couch. It lands on top of the neat pile of his things.

If her eyes linger a little too long on the pull of his shoulders, well. He’s not looking at her to catch her gaze.

Then he joins her, bed shifting as he settles. There is space enough between them for another body to settle, but it is not an uncomfortable thing, and neither move to bridge the gap.

She sits up only slightly to douse the candles with a precise twist of her fingers, and when they flicker out they leave the room dark save for the cherry tinge of the low-burning fire in the hearth. For a moment the only noise is the low crackle of the firewood burning down to embers, and the echo of their twin breathing.

“Thank you,” he murmurs suddenly. She turns her head towards him, a blot of shadow darker than those around him. The shape twists; he’s looking at her. His eyes shine ever so slightly in the fire’s lingering glow.

“Of course,” she says. It’s not quite what she wants to say–– _always_ , maybe, or _I’m glad you are here_ , or _this space is made for you_ ––but it will do. He sighs, and the bed shifts again as he rolls over onto his back and tucks one hand beneath his head.

“Goodnight,” he says. She draws her knees up to her chin and curls in around herself, small and warm and safe, and closes her eyes.

“Goodnight,” she returns to the darkness, and then there is only the crackle and their breaths.

Outside, the snow falls slow and heavy, piles up atop the roofs and through the rocky courtyard and down to the camps in the valley below. In the morning it will be fresh and stark and a day’s work to clear it away, but that is tomorrow. Tonight, curled up beneath the heavy quilt of her bedding, fire banked to a dull, distant red, snow-static drifting down all around, she and Cullen sleep soundly through the night.

**Author's Note:**

> find me––and much more DA fic––on tumblr at [cityandking](http://cityandking.tumblr.com)


End file.
